Indian Navy Torpedo Recovery Vessel Sinks

An Indian Navy torpedo recovery vessel A-72 of the Astravahini-class has sunk off the coast of Visakhapatnam. One sailor has died, 23 rescued and four remain missing. An extensive search and rescue operation is currently on at the Eastern Naval Command. The vessel experienced 'abrupt flooding' according to a navy official I spoke to. The 110 ton ship was on a routine primary mission to recover practice torpedoes fired by vessels of the Eastern fleet.

NEW DELHI: In yet another tragic accident in the Navy, a sailor was killed and another four were reported missing after a torpedo recovery vessel (TRV) sank 30 nautical miles south of Visakhapatnam at about 8pm on Thursday.

Till late in the night, hectic search and rescue operations were in progress to find the missing personnel.

The mishap took place when the aging 110-tonne TRV A-72, which was commissioned way back in February 1983, was on a routine mission to "recover" practice mines and torpedoes fired by fleet warships off the Vizag coast in the evening.

Click to expand...

[HR][/HR]

This is unfortunate. Mishaps happen, but aren't mishaps with the Indian Navy a bit too frequent?

Refuse to believe that spare parts have anything to do with this sinking. The amount of water the vessel took and so quickly that it sank and took the lives of a sailor, a few are missing, is not due to spare parts. Either the hull cracked, which in a steel built ship never happens unless rivets or welds tear apart or a recovered torpedo exploded. The ship only recovers dummy torpedoes. But it is possible that this was a live one and it exploded on board.

Another possibility exists that the ship ran aground. That will tear the hull steel plates.

Learned men like to blame civilian procurements departments at the Defence Ministry. This time the blame is indirectly being transferred to procurement department via spare parts. One has to ask, what spare parts are required to keep the hull in good shape to prevent huge amount of water rushing in.

I am not glad it sank. Junking a vessel that is not anymore seaworthy is one thing and losing one in an avoidable accident is another. The impact each will have on the navy is different.

Why is the IN persisting with such obsolete tinder boxes? Such vessels should have been junked long back. There are two major problems when IN persists with such obsolescent hardware which invariably succumb sooner than later.
1. The loss of precious trained manpower which is hard to replace.
2. The effect on the morale such an accident can have on naval personnel.

Add to them the time wasted on the investigation over a lost cause apart from the money already spent on keeping the junk in a seaworthy fashion.

High time both IN and IAF reviewed its entire inventory and junked all the irrecoverably obsolete hardware.